Heart of the Swarm is coming....

As an openly huge fan of e-sports and specifically Starcraft 2 it may come as a shock to anyone who cares that I am actually not that excited for the upcoming expansion Heart of the Swarm. Of course it is too soon to tell how good it will be, but in hindsight it is my not-so-humble opinion that more doesn't necessarily always equal better. Heart of the Swarm's success in my eyes will really focus on what it brings to the table and what it really improves. In case you haven't seen the teaser/gameplay video:



Maybe I started off a little harsh, as the single player campaign of Starcraft 2 is really only rivaled by earlier entries into Blizzard's RTS's in terms of polish, variety, arc, and quality. The mechanics were amazing and the design was so meticulous that it may as well have had a mirror shine. My only issue was that the story, characters, and setting weren't really that good.

*Spoiler warning* the plot of Wings of Liberty was pretty much a drunken rebel faffing about, crying about his evil bug girlfriend for most of the game until he attacks the "swarm" and leads a small band of soldiers to defeat the greatest threat the Korpulu sector has ever known. By his side was his old friend who has always been his old friend who evidently only wants to kill his bug girlfriend (and is probably right to do so).

Dude, how did a few marines fight an entire planet swarming with the most evolved killer sentient bug race in history? What really happened for the first 80% of the game? I know I always say story doesn't make a great game, but it certainly can make a good game amazing and can take a great game down to good. Stracraft 2's single player mechanics and mission variety are rivaled by no other modern RTS's, but the plot is certainly garbage. Can they turn that plot around and make it actually as epic as it should and thought itself to be?

The best thing about Wings of Liberty's story was the launch trailer. Epic:


The multiplayer, ie the reason Starcraft 2 was really created, is what keeps millions of players worldwide glued to their PC's. Starcraft 2 is pretty damn close to perfectly balanced, and I know my friends all make fun of my love of watching the pro's play (btw did you see the AMAZING game QXC played? Mass micro'd Reapers FTW its a new thing) and around the world there is a reasonably lively scene. The question here would be would it be too much to alter the delicate balance? Does more mean better or would it throw off the delicate flow of the match? Would chess be better if it got 2 expansion packs?

Ultimately Blizzard has yet to deliver a product not worth full price and then some. They have made the 2 best RTS franchises in the world, the best click fest ever, and the best legal drug to ever ruin nerd culture. They are the best of the best and it will be nice to see them bring the story forward and improve the already amazing multiplayer. I am just going in to it with the attitude that it will be messing with a good thing and will leave the burden of proof with Blizzard to show me otherwise.

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A nonsensical rant about pro Starcraft 2 and eSports

I absolutely love watching pro Starcraft 2 matches online. I'm starting to become a more hardcore fan and working up to live casts of international tournaments, but right now I watch a lot of my favorite Sc2 casters on youtube. Watching a well cast, well played Sc2 match is a ton of fun and reminds me a lot of why I am a huge sports fan.

Outside of gaming I love to watch Baseball, Basketball, and Football in that order. I live in New England, so fortunately for me all of my teams generally are in their selective playoffs and I always get to catch a few live games every year. Working in downtown Boston no matter where you look there are always RedSox, Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots (our sports teams for my international viewers) clothes adorning every other pedestrian. Will eSports ever be a part of our national pastimes? Will we ever see pro gaming team jerseys? What would eSports need to do to really rise to prominence?

First off let's look at what makes sports fun to watch and what keeps people from getting bored. First off sports are fun for the same reason that Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead is fun; competition. Since the Greeks started the Olympics many years ago history has acknowledged it is really engaging to watch people who are the best at what they do being the best at what the do. When you watch a pitcher in a baseball match throw so many precision pitches, so many different pitches, all from 90 feet away and most landing with in a 2 squarish meter window with other athletes just getting confused at how to hit the pitches it is really exciting. It is also exciting to see one of those hitters get a good read on an amazing pitches and smash that ball so hard with a bat it flies out of the park. Superb and skilled athletic displays are brilliant to watch and translate into fun.

Watching a pro Sc2 match can have that same effect. When you watch someone who is so good at balancing micro and macro and adapting their play to get the right unit combination with the right positioning, or you watch a brilliant Protoss player hold off a zergling rush, or a Terran do a double drop at two different expansions and cut their opponents economy in half in about 20 seconds it can also get really exciting because it takes skill.


There is a great sense in hometown pride rooting for your favorite sports teams. We have over 100 years of history in Boston with the RedSoxand the team here is larger than life. Games are sold out months ahead of time. On TV games get some of the highest ratings. We love our hometown team and it is always more emotional and connecting when you have a hometown team to root for.

This is a big gap that eSports would really need to step it up. It is very difficult to rally people together and build awareness enough to establish a profesional, local club. There would also have to be enough talent and money to be able to band together the necessary clubs to be able to organize a national or semi-national league. The logistics would be really tough and take a decently funded organization to put together. There won't be a lot of funding until there is awareness. There won't be awareness until there is a league or organization to be aware of. There won't be a league until there is funding. There won't be funding until.....

It is so magical to see a live sporting event. I always try and catch 5 or so RedSox games a year because, despite it being significantly more expensive than watching the game on tv, there is such an incredible energy when you enter a stadium with 40,000 fans cheering together, laughing together, drinking together, booing together, and generally sharing an emotional connection to what is happening on the field.

This is the magic I think eSports can really capture slowly but surely. If you could go to a bar on a night with 100ish other people and watch 2 or 3 great Sc2 matches with people cheering or oo-ing at baneling busts, or calling out mistakes, or cheering big skirmishes, that would be really exciting. If we could find live events that would really capture the shared emotional experience of a common interest and you could have talented players that could really put on a great show
with a charismatic caster calling the games, it could really be special.

I plan on starting to try and put together an Eastern Massachusetts Starcraft 2 league. I could definitely get nights in some bars in Boston, Worcester, and places in between, so really it would be about securing a couple sponsers, creating awareness and getting an interested crowd, and finding enough local talent to make it happen. I really love eSports and Starcraft 2 in paticular and I hope that we can start seeing it rise to fame in North America in the next 10 to 15 years.

MLG is a great start, but I really think local effort are where we will really see pro gaming and eSports grow here in North America. We all need to be able to go see a match or event after work on a Wednesday. It will take the nerdy guy dragging his girlfriend to a match, it will take fans inviting non fans, it will take patience and lots of explanations of builds and units (just like me trying to pick up rugby), but we can and will get there (I hope).